Posts by JoshBourne

Any Potential Boost Remains to be Seen

Obviously the engineers at Google are the only ones who can say with any certainty how, or even whether, the search engine’s algorithms will adapt to new gTLDs in the future. Considering the investment that new gTLDs require, I think there are many applicants that very much want to believe that new gTLDs will automatically rank better than .COM or other domain names that contain preexisting extensions. It will only make sense to begin trying to answer that question when more information becomes available once new gTLDs come to market.

If new gTLD domains stand a chance of ranking well in comparison to .COM and other preexisting domain names, that chance will depend on how those new gTLD domains are used. Google and other search engines aim to deliver the most relevant query results; if Internet users overwhelmingly begin navigating to and trusting .BRAND and other new domain names, for example, because those domains become more authoritative destinations for the brand- and category-related content that consumers are seeking, then we could see search engines like Google and Bing, to a lesser extent, ranking them well in organic search results. But as Mr. Cutts points out, the rumored shift in search rankings will not be automatic, and it is certainly not guaranteed.